Under the Volcano

Christopher Marlowe’s play Doctor Faustus first premiered in 1594, although the first written record of the script does not appear until 1604. The play follows the titular Faustus, a famous scholar specializing in theology and science. Frustrated with the limits of his knowledge, he summons Mephistopheles, a demon who promises to give him access to unlimited knowledge and power for 24 years. Faustus agrees to the terms, knowingly selling his soul to the devil. Over the next 24 years, Faustus rises to fame as a magician but is continually stymied by Mephistopheles’s antics and unsatisfying answers to his many questions. His colleagues and friends worry for his soul as his deadline approaches, and when it comes, he is dragged into the fiery pits of hell. 

Malcolm Lowry alludes to Doctor Faustus throughout Under the Volcano. It is first mentioned in Chapter 1, when Jacques Laruelle reads the play in the bar. However, this allusion takes on greater meaning as Lowry aligns his own protagonist, the Consul, with the doomed Faustus. While Marlowe’s play is more fantastical than Lowry’s modernist novel, both share key plot points and themes. While the Consul does not literally sell his soul to the devil, he views his addiction to alcohol in those terms, frequently blaming it on evil spirits or “familiars” to whom he is in thrall. Like Faustus, his “deal with the devil” destroys his relationships and ultimately leads to his undoing. Another interesting aspect shared between the two novels is the notion of time running out. Faustus only has 24 years (the same number of hours in a day), while Under the Volcano occurs over the course of one day and includes 12 chapters (one rotation of a clock). At the end of these cycles, the protagonists die, with Faustus being dragged to hell and the Consul being shot and thrown in a ditch while hallucinating that he is falling into Popocatepetl.

Malcolm Lowry (1909-1957) was an English poet, short story writer, and novelist best known for Under the Volcano. The novel is based on an earlier short story of the same name. In the short story, the Consul, Yvonne, and Hugh are taking a bus to Tomalín when they encounter an injured man on the side of the road. Lowry eventually expanded this story to become the classic novel, with some slight variations. In the short story, Yvonne is not the Consul’s ex-wife but his daughter. Hugh is Yvonne’s fiancé. At a surface level, this change may seem substantial, but throughout the novel, the legacy of this earlier iteration of the narrative can be seen. The Consul detects romantic tension between Yvonne and Hugh, who are closer in age than Yvonne and her ex-husband. The short story was written in 1936, but it was the novel published eleven years later in 1947 that established Lowry as a preeminent modernist writer. 

As a modernist writer, Lowry is unique in that he drew on many of his own experiences in his writing. His first novel, Ultramarine (1933), is based on his experiences at sea and shares similarities with Hugh’s voyage across the world, while Under the Volcano is informed by his experience living in Mexico and his interest in film.